National highways toll-free at night over holiday / 交部拍板 中秋.雙十連假國道夜間都不收費　　　　　　　　　　

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced that, national highways will be toll-free at night over the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday and also over the National Day holiday. Since night time driving usually cause more fatal accident, the MOTC called on the driving public, to sleep well first, before taking to the roads. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced that national highways will be toll-free at night over the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday and also over the National Day holiday. ==WANG KUO-TSUN Deputy MOTC Minister== This year over the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday the national freeways will be toll-free overnight. The MOTC commissioned the Chinese Institute of Transportation to take a survey. This showed that last year on national freeways at night from 11 pm to 6 am, the fatal accident rate was 0.15%. Compared to daytime and evening death rates, this was much higher. International statistics also show that the night time accident death rate is two to five times higher. However, this still did not change the outcome of the public survey. ==TAO CHIH-CHUNG Sec. Gen., Chinese Institute of Transportation== Data from the Dragon boat festival holiday was compared to data from previous long weekend holidays. We found that fatal accidents at night were significantly higher than during the day and evening. This was backed up by all the statistics. ==WANG KUO-TSUN Deputy MOTC Minister== The majority of the public feels that having toll-free access to freeways at night helps with dispersing traffic and they want toll-free access. MOTC Minister Ho Chen Tan said in interviews that the driving public needed to accept the basic fact that it was normal for there to be traffic jams during long weekends. This wouldn't change just because there was night time toll-free access to highways. Safety was an important issue and one that people needed to take seriously. The Minister stressed the continued necessity of night time tolls as safety was an important issue. However, due to public opinion, toll-free night time access was back. The MOTC said it would continue to discuss the issue and when polls showed that the public had a more favorable view would resume night time toll collection. TRANSLATED BY：CLARE LEAR 不到半個月就是中秋節4天連假，是否會比照端午連假國道夜間，實施收費制度，交通部終於拍板定案，中秋夜間免收費。 ==交通部政務次長 王國材== 今年中秋連續假期 國道夜間不收費 不只是中秋連假，就連雙十連假也維持夜間免收費。雖然交通部委託中華運輸學會調查顯示，去年國道夜間，在晚上11點到早上6點之間肇事死亡率為0.15%，相較於日間及晚間兩個時段，高出許多。而國外文獻也證實，夜間死亡風險比日間多出2到5倍，但這些數據最後還是敵不過民調。 ==中華民國運輸學會秘書長 陶治中== 端午節連續假期的資料 跟過去以往有連續假期的 拿來做比對 發現夜間死亡的肇事 很明顯高於日間跟晚間 所以賀陳部長說 夜間開車風險之高 的確從這個數據上 是得到證實的 ==交通部政務次長 王國材== 大部分的民眾 對於國道夜間免費 有助於分散車流 他們還是期待免費 是否向民意妥協？交通部長賀陳旦，接受平面媒體訪問時表示，民眾必須要有基本認知，連假塞車是常態，不會因為夜間免費政策就所有改變。另外，安全不能馬虎，夜間行車更要注意安全。部長語重心長、強調基於行車安全，國道夜間收費還是有其必要性，但因為民意，一切還是回到原點。交通部表示將會持續溝通，等到民眾能接受才會收費。 記者 王柏文 陳信隆 台北報導